Choreography
by Phoebonica
Summary: Kit and Olaf dueling in a library. In more ways than one.


**Disclaimer and Notes:** I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or anything connected to it. This story was inspired by Telophase's Cool Bits Story Generator, which gave me this:

_Your story is a romance between a sympathetic villain and someone too focused on a goal to be concerned with sexual matters. The lovers experience holding someone still with one hand tangled in their hair and a duel while in a library._

It's not exactly a romance. Except in Olaf's head, maybe.

**Choreography **

If Kit were anyone else she'd be dead by now. Dead or dying or desperate. She has to remind herself of this, even as Olaf's blade flashes and he lunges forward and Kit spins and parries and blocks. It's balletic, almost poetic, almost beautiful, and Kit has to bite her lip and remember again and again, with each clash of blades and flash of light, that any other volunteer in her place would have no time to appreciate it. No one else would have anything to appreciate. Jacques or (_God forbid_) Lemony would be backed into a corner at this point, muscles shrieking in pain and exhaustion, hands beginning to weaken and slide.

Kit is barely even out of breath.

This isn't a duel, it's a performance.

They crash into shelves, arms swinging, blades flying, and books cascade to the floor. Kit steps over the piles, the little snowdrifts, instinctively, the deference and respect drilled into her in childhood still guiding her steps. She sidesteps, leaps, avoids, and Olaf of course does not give a damn and just keeps going, as pages rip and crumple and spines crack beneath his feet. Doesn't care in the slightest, of _course_, that's why he looks at her each time like a cat about to scratch your sofa or attack your curtains once it's sure it has your attention. And Kit knows this, knows exactly what he's doing and yet she flinches every single blasted time. She can't help it.

These are sacred things, she's always been taught that.

And he always delighted in sacrilege.

Then he slips on a page. Rebalances himself almost immediately, expression barely altering, but now Kit has an opening. She steps forward, on the attack. She strikes at him.

It's not a particularly forceful blow, he could deflect it easily if he wanted to. But he springs to the side, twirling, grasping a shelf above his head and mounting the bookcase in one swift, effortless seeming motion. Kit's blow hits shelving. Olaf grins, eyes bright, sword flashing through the air above his head.

So stupid, so utterly _stupid_. He's left himself wide open, defenceless, there's no way he could block from that position and he knows better. He knows how to defend himself. He knows what he's doing.

Damn him, he knows _exactly_ what he's doing.

Kit steps forward, sword twisting in her hands, pointing away from him now as she drives the pommel hard into his gut. He whimpers, turning pale, doubling over and collapsing to the ground like a daddy-long-legs swatted from the air. His sword falls from his hand and Kit kicks it away to spin beneath a row of shelves.

"What did you do that for?" Olaf wheezes.

Kit sheathes her own sword. Her hand is trembling with fury.

"If you want to fight me, do it properly," she snarls. "Stage moves belong on the stage, Olaf. Have the decency to take me seriously."

He looks up at her, limp hair fallen across his eyes. "I think you broke something."

She slams the palm of her hand against a shelf, hissing in wordless frustration – _you_ idiot – and turns away. Realising too late as his fingers wrap around her ankle that that was a bluff, a strategy, and now here's plan B. She tries to pull away but he tugs her back, hard, nails digging in and of course she spins and trips. And then he's on her, moving far to fast (she notes, with a certain cynical amusement) for a man who claimed to be so grievously injured.

He straddles her waist, one hand knotted in her hair, pinning her to the carpet. With his other hand he trails one finger down the side of her face, so slowly, and Kit is meant to remember other floors in other libraries at this point, surreptitious touches and the heat of his skin and their hearts racing together. Teenage passions.

She looks up into his gleaming eyes and shakes her head, as much as he'll allow her to. "That's not going to work," she says. "We're done with that."

"Oh, Kit. That was cold." He leans in to her. "You never used to be so cold," he murmurs, stale wine on his breath. "I think someone should warm you up again."

His free hand slides down her body, pausing at her stomach with that taunting intimation that it could slip lower, or higher. Kit is meant to be – what? Aroused? Afraid? She's neither. She's too tired even really to be angry with him any more.

"That's terribly dramatic," she says. Her voice is flat. "But you are neither going to burn me nor ravish me, Olaf, so I suggest you get up. I don't have time for this."

"I could." He draws even closer, with his best predatory grin, eyes flicking up and down her body. "If I wanted to."

"Oh, I'm sure. But you don't, and you wouldn't."

He sits back, dropping the grin, dropping the act. Loosens his grip on her hair. "No, you're right," he says in his normal voice, the one Kit barely remembers. "I wouldn't hurt you. Why do you seem to have a problem with that?"

She can sit up a little now, push herself up on her elbows. "You hurt my friends. You destroyed our work. You ruined my brother. How could you not think any of that would hurt me?"

"You're the one who always said how I felt about _him_ didn't affect our relationship."

Kit's head crashes back to the carpet. "You cannot really be this dense. We don't exist in isolation. This isn't a game, and like it or not I'm part of the people you're trying to destroy. You can't play out your little bad guy scenes and then pretend that they don't count."

"Look who's talking." He glares down at her. "You're the one who wants to pretend that nothing we had together existed. Am I really just a villain to you, Kit?"

She shuts her eyes. "Olaf, please. I don't have time…"

"You're not going anywhere unless you tell me," he hisses. "Tell me every day we spent together was meaningless. Tell me every time you touched me was a lie. Tell me how you never wanted any of it, and I'll let you go."

Kit opens her eyes again. "Oh, I wanted you," she says, softly. "I wanted every smile, every touch, every minute of it. I still do. But _it_ –"

- she pulls her hand free, grabs his arm –

" – _is_ –"

- arches her back, legs wrapped around his, twisting –

" – _over_."

- and he tumbles to the ground, Kit on top this time, hand grasping his hair that he can't have washed in a week, and with her other hand she draws her sword. Not completely, just enough that he can see the metal gleaming in the dim light. He looks at it and gulps.

"The next time we meet," Kit says, calmly, "I will be working under the assumption that we are mortal enemies, just like you and the rest of my family."

He swallows again, and looks up at her. "I still love you."

"I know." She sheaths her blade again. "I suggest you get over that."

She stands up, brushing dust from her skirt. Olaf sits up on his elbows. "I'm not giving up on you, Kit," he tells her. "I'm going to kiss you one more time. Even if it has to be goodbye."

Kit shakes her head. "Somehow I doubt that."

She walks away then, leaving him alone among the tall rows of shelves. Outside the library, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the box of matches that she took from him during the fight. There are easier ways to get rid of them, but she tips them out on the ground and grinds them under her feet, not stopping until all the pink heads have turned black and the air is full of the smell of flames extinguished before they could burn. Then she walks away into the night.


End file.
